At the same time that the wanderer on the rough path of Bjelostok forest was gathering up its snow roses, another man on the far-off shores of the Black Sea was preparing for a long, distant, and hurried journey. The two men hasten to the same goal. They had never seen one another, had never heard the other's name, had never corresponded. Yet each is aware of the other's existence; aware that they are to meet, and that this meeting must take place on a given day. The first has, perhaps, the shorter road to take, but he can only ride slowly; he has to avoid inhabited towns, to utilize night for his progress, to pass the days in isolated csards.
The second has the longer and more difficult way; but the only battle he has to fight is with the elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, and these he can conquer. The fifth obstacle—man—places himself obsequiously at his service. This traveller wears the uniform of a colonel. Short of stature, he gains in height by the singular erectness of his head and the elasticity of his walk. By that walk he can be detected under any disguise. His closely cropped hair displays a broad, high brow; his eager eyes dance in his head as he speaks. He has an expressive face—one from which it is easy to read his thoughts, even when his lips are silent—a face in which every muscle moves with his words; one in strongest contrast to that of the other man. He can hide his every feeling under an immovable countenance; this one betrays beforehand his every thought. During his five minutes' colloquy with the jemsik, he has exhausted a whole gamut of expressions, from flattery to rage, as if playing upon the strings of a violin. He gesticulates violently with his hands; now his five fingers are under the peasant's nose; then they strike him on the shoulder, punch him in the ribs, seize him by the lappet of his coat; now shake, then embrace him. He kisses him, strokes his beard with coaxing action, then tugs at it, pushes him roughly away, finally reaching him his flask for a drink; and perhaps his only object has been to find out whether the road to Jekaseviroslaw is passable or not.
For while the snow still lies deep in the forest of Bjelostok, and gun-carriages may yet drive across the ice-covered Niemen, thaw has already set in along the valleys of the Dnieper and the Don, and the whole plain is a sea, from out which the rush huts, with their surrounding plantations of reeds, stand out like solitary islands. To every hut a boat made of willow is secured; this boat is the one and only mode of locomotion, albeit a dangerous one, whereby in the spring season the inhabitants can convey themselves to the pasture-land to look after their cattle and horses.
As far as eye can reach stretches out the endless reddish-brown plain. Rushes, reeds, and other water-plants not yet freed from their dried-up winter clothing, lend a deep-red shimmer to the landscape, to which the sprouting willows, now illumined by the light of the setting sun, add their tinge of color. The storm-portending evening glow tinges the fleecy clouds flame color, causing the rest of the sky to appear topaz green. Myriads of water-birds whirl restlessly through the air, filling the plain with their cries. In the far distance swim a flock of swans, tinged golden in the setting sun, which, half-sunken beneath the horizon, sends out its last rays across the changing clouds, like a departing sovereign clothed in gold and purple.
Across the great, never-ending plain there is but one path, laid bridge-like with willow stems. Over this the traveller must needs make his way—there is no alternative. The river banks passed, further sign of human habitation ceases. The smithy of a gypsy colony, which has established itself on the side of a hill, alone sends its light far out into the evening mist. Soon that, too, will be lost in the gathering gloom; then the traveller's three-horsed car must jolt along by the fitful light of the moon. An occasional kurgan rising up here and there in the Steppe is the sole sign that it was once inhabited by a people. Those tschudas upon the brow of the hill were their gods. Blocks of stone, with roughly carved human heads, proclaim afar, even to the banks of the Amur, the former abiding-place of a race which has not left even a name behind, only its gods, which later races have called tschudas (from the Hungarian word csuda, signifying "miracle").
The traveller will find shelter for the night with a Czaban, who has chanced to dig himself a cave near the wayside, and lives there, surrounded by his numerous herds of sheep. The Colonel remarks in his note-book that the shepherds living in the neighborhood of the kurgans are a stupid, squalid set, who smell of cheese.
Next morning the chariot with its ringing bells proceeds ever farther and farther, until the inundated banks of the Dnieper oblige it to halt. Here, the traveller has no resource but to take to a boat. Luckily the stream is sufficiently swollen to enable his boat successfully to navigate the famous Falls of Herodotus without striking on the rocks. Only of the last does the ferryman warn him. It is the Nyenaschiketz (the Insatiable). There it is not advisable to tempt one's fate by evening light.
"But I must go on," says the traveller, imperiously. He is in haste. That alters the case. His imperious "must" knows no hindrances. Upon it follows the only answer, "Seisas" (Immediately). This one word characterizes the whole people. It even bridges over the "Insatiable." The boat goes to pieces, but boatman and traveller swim safely to shore. The remainder of the night is passed in a fisherman's hut. The traveller here remarks in his note-book that the boatmen and fisher-folk who live on the banks of the Dnieper are a stupid, squalid set, who smell of fish.
The opposite bank is inhabited by the Zaporogenes, who take their name from the falls "zaporagi"—people who live beside waterfalls. Here it is only possible to proceed on horseback. By nightfall the traveller has reached Szetsa, a so-called village. The houses are earthen caves, thatched with grass, called "kurenyi." The traveller, after having sung and drunk with the Zaporogenes, observes in his note-book that the dwellers in "kurenyi" are a stupid, squalid set, smelling of coach-grease.
The first work of a Zaporagen is to soak his new garments in tar, to make them durable. Among that people are to be found the first indistinct traces of a longing after freedom, primitive, but still existent. This instinct reaches its culminating-point in the propensity to rob their neighbors; turn their wives out of doors when tired of them, and take to themselves a fresh one, who may please them better.